Biography of Lady Batori

The Hungarian aristocrat Erzhebet Batori went down in history, folklore and modern mass culture as almost the first serial killer. But why does Google give out an image of another woman as her portrait and is it known at all, how did she really look? The art critic Sofya Bagdasarova tells. If you ask the search engine how this legendary murderer looked like in the front row of results, in addition to frames from films, there will be a perfectly written portrait of a beautiful lady in a red dress.

This picture, signed by the name of Elizabeth Batori, is sold in photo studios, decorates the covers of books on her and inspires fan. A cold detached face and a bright dress perfectly complement the terrible story about an aristocrat who killed girls for his own beauty. However, in this case, we have a characteristic example of how the Internet distorts information. This portrait is not depicted at all Batori - this image is attributed to her by the mass consciousness, constantly looking for catchy visual images that illustrate the remembered phenomena.

Left: Bronzino. In the middle: the cover of a book dedicated to Elizabeth Batori. Right: Fanart with the image of Elizabeth Batori, drawn with blood. Source: FineArtamerica. She depicts the noble Italian lady Lucretia Panchiatics, the wife of the humanist and the politician of Barolomeo Panchiatics, whose biography is not noted by anything terrible. The picture exhibited in Uffizi is certainly a masterpiece of Bronzino painting, which is why the identification error has gained such popularity: due to the dissonance between the ideal beauty of the model and the terrifying associations arising from the viewer with the name of the bloody countess, the portrait is especially sinking into memory.

Another picture, which is called a portrait of Elizabeth Batori, depicts the young Elizabeth Tudor Hood. William Skrotts, approx. Obviously, she is taken for the budiy because of the red dress. A screenshot from a photo stock, where a portrait of Elizabeth Tudor is sold as an image of Elizabeth Batori, such erroneous identifications constantly arise on the Internet: say, a portrait of his wife Ekaterina I, articles about the first American serial Miller of Lavini Fisher, illustrate a kartizan woman for the image of the mistress of Peter the Great Anna Mons.

Kitty Fisher, and the maniac Saltychikha is her full namesake of the same era in the portraits of Ritt and Druy. And how many options for the “real portraits” of Lucretia Borgia and for some reason Maria Lazich, Beloved Fet, are simply impossible to count. This phenomenon is common and, in my opinion, requires further study. Its root is that the fantasy of the modern consumer of information does not tolerate vacuum, and if the historical person “has no face”, the massive unconscious begins to “generate” it itself, at least by erroneous attribution of paintings.

In the case of Elizabeth, Batori is curious that her portraits were still preserved. But how do they portray it and why do lovers of historical nightmares and fans of vampire stories reject them? The answer is obvious right away - the artistic level of real portraits of Batori is terrifying. They clearly have only historical value, not aesthetic. And no psychologism. Of course, it is much more interesting to imagine her similar to a girl from the picture of Brondzino.

So what has been preserved? At the moment, three portraits of Elizabeth Batori are known - one full -speed and two smaller formats. A full -height portrait stored in the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest is the earliest and carefully worked out of them. She got to the metropolitan museum only after the Second World War, along with the paired portrait of her husband Countess - Ferenc Nadashdi.

Please note that the picture dates from about a year, that is, about sixteen years after her death. How adequate this posthumous image reflects the face of the countess? It remains only to guess. The portrait was executed by the Elizabeth family, since it, although it was isolated from society, still remained the mother of the family-and its descendants needed to glorify and perpetuate it.

For centuries, the galleries of family portraits have been an attribute of any aristocratic house, including in Hungary. The principles by which such galleries were created throughout Europe are known. If there were many good portraiters in the country, as in England, then the gallery was replenished in every generation. If the painters in the region were a lack, then the artist who got the order wrote both living customers and his ancestors who in bulk.

In the event that some images of these ancestors had, for example, a miniature with a face, then the artist used them as a source to create front portraits, complementing the composition. The finished portrait was supposed to approach the rest of the paintings in the gallery, forming a single series.In the case of this portrait of Elizabeth, the so -called Spanish composition of the ceremonial portrait, which appeared in Madrid at the court of King Philip II, was used: a person is depicted at full height, his hand rests on a stand on the table, chair, head of the dwarf or page.

When Velazquez put his models in such a pose, the image turned out to be light and sophisticated, but when this scheme spread to all the nursery in Europe, it was simplified to the extreme. The Spanish composition became typical of the provincial ceremonial portrait and is found, in particular, in the “Sarmatian portraits” of the gentry and in the Russian Parsun. In essence, the author of the portrait of Batori was such a bad artist that even the portraits of our kings of the XVII century, for all his naivety, above his head in quality.

The Hungarian National Museum Budapest does not know whether this author used any lifetime images of Elizabeth to create a ceremonial family portrait, or wrote her face according to the descriptions of family members. Or maybe he just invented himself, it also often happened - this way the huge family galleries of “fictional retrospective portraits” for example, our early kings and the great princes of Moscow, appeared.

In any case, the face here is so poorly written that it does not give any food to the imagination. True, a suit with a complex collar and corsage on lacing is noteworthy, but it is found on other female portraits of the same region and the same era. In essence, only the inscription with the name of the countess, her family ties and date is unique. Two other portraits are simplified copies from the previous one.

A better victorious portrait was in the museum in the chakhtyz up to a year, and then was stolen. This copy was written in the year by an artist named Y. The Third Portrait in the General Slices is an even more simplified copy of the same option, and, judging by the level of painting, was made by some kind of rustic malarus. Valentine, the whereabouts are unknown “Portrait of Elizabeth Batori”, an unknown artist.

Despite the fact that the kingdom was part of the Habsburg empire, the artistic level of portrait painting in it was very low, especially outside the capital. If Batori lived in Italy that time, there would be a lot of excellent portraiters, however, being the inhabitant of the art province, she, alas, left us not a single detailed image. Finally, it remains to mention another curiosity with the identification of the portrait of Batori.

In addition to ordinary Internet users who attribute the paintings erroneously, but for which it does not matter, there are private collectors who bought a portrait and confident that it depicts a legendary person. Sometimes this confidence develops into obsession.

Art critics often have to fight their perseverance, since the versions emanating from the immediate owners of paintings require more serious refutations. A private collection about the personality of this woman is unknown, but the picture has the initial “B”-because of it, a person who bought a picture is completely sure that the portrait is depicted precisely by Batori. There are no other evidence, nothing is known either about Bloplandt’s visits to Hungary, nor Elizabeth - to any other countries where they could cross.

The collector created a site dedicated to this portrait and began to actively promote his version. At first he wanted to give a picture to Batori's homeland, but collided with the polite silence of local museums. Now, judging by the information on his website, he is engaged in filing court claims against those who use his content. However, this picture did not receive widespread as a portrait of Batori.

Absolutely because the dress on it is not red! Nesy about culture.